METAPAX(1)							    METAPAX(1)



NAME
       metapax - create pacman metapackages


SYNOPSIS
       metapax [options]


DESCRIPTION
       Metapax is a package management utility intended for use with pacman on
       Arch Linux. It's main feature is its  ability  to  create  metapackages
       from  arbitrary	packages. This facilitates package management by orga‐
       nizing your packages into logical groups that you can install and unin‐
       stall  together. It is also possible to create a "snapshot" metapackage
       of all explicitly installed packages. This should let you quickly rein‐
       stall  all  packages on your current system on another system or simply
       provide a "backup" package.

       Another key feature is the ability to  reconstruct  packages  currently
       installed on your system. This should make it possible to recover pack‐
       ages that are no longer available through a repository or in your pack‐
       age cache.

       Note  that metapackages should be included in (local) package reposito‐
       ries to enable automatic dependency resolution. Installing metapackages
       with "pacman -U" will not do this.


METAPAX INFO FILE FORMAT
       # Comments begin with "#"
       # the name of the metapackage
       NAME = <metapackage name>
       # the description
       DESC = <metapackage description>
       # a list of packages to include in this metapackage
       # packages may be specified either as "foo" or "foo>=4.5"
       <package name>
       <package name>
       <package name>


USAGE
   Building Metapackages
       metapax --build <metapackage info file>
	      Build  a metapackage from the specified info file. See above for
	      info file syntax.

       metapax --build-interactively
	      Prompt the user for a metapackage name, description and a space-
	      delimited list of packages to include.

       metapax --group <package group>
	      Build  a	metapackage  from  an existing package group. The user
	      will be prompted for a name and description.


   Getting Metapackage Info
       metapax --get-info <metapackage>
	      Display info for the given metapackage. The ".pkg.tar.gz" exten‐
	      sion  is optional. To easily edit a package, save this info to a
	      file, edit it manually, then use it to (re)build	the  metapack‐
	      age.



   System Snapshots
       metapax --system-snapshot
	      Create  a	 metapackage  from  all explicitly installed top-level
	      packages, i.e. everything listed by "pacman -Qet" minus  foreign
	      packages (packages not found in the sync database). Metapax will
	      reconstruct foreign packages when possible.



   Package Reconstruction
       metapax --reconstruct <package>
	      Attempt to reconstruct a package using info in the  local	 data‐
	      base and the files on your system. This should work if you still
	      have all the files that belong to the package. The reconstructed
	      package  should be identical to the currently installed one when
	      you reinstall it.



   Marking Packages
       metapax --mark-deps-explicit [pkgs]
	      Mark all	dependencies  of  the  given  packages	as  explicitly
	      installed.  This	is  useful if you want to remove a metapackage
	      after you've used it to install several packages but don't  want
	      to leave the packages as orphans.

       --mark-deps-implicit [pkgs]
	      Mark all dependencies of the given packages as dependencies.

       metapax --mark-explicit [pkgs]
	      Mark the specified packages as explicitly installed.

       --mark-implicit [pkgs]
	      Mark the specified packages as dependencies.



   Listing Packages in a Metapackage
       --list-deps <pkg>
	      List  the	 packages  in  the  given metapackage on a single line
	      (useful for piping perhaps).

       --list-deps <pkg> -v
	      Same as above but includes the minimal versions of  dependencies
	      if they have been specified.


AUTHORS
       Xyne



				  April 2009			    METAPAX(1)